Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/33

Rh

N China, you know, the emperor is a Chinese, and all those about him are Chinamen. It is now many years ago—but for that very reason the story is better worth hearing before it is quite forgotten—the emperor’s palace was the most magnificent in the whole world; it was built entirely of the finest porcelain, and was costly to a degree, but so brittle and so ticklish, that one scarcely dared to touch it. In the garden might be seen the most singular flowers, and to the most beautiful of these were fastened little silver bells that kept jingling, so that one could not pass by without observing them. Everything in the emperor’s garden was calculated after the same fashion. The garden itself extended so far that even the gardener did not know where it ended. If one went beyond its limits, one reached the finest forest with lofty trees and deep lakes. The forest sloped down to the deep blue sea: large ships could sail under its branches, in one of which dwelt a nightingale that sang so sweetly, that even the poor fishermen, who had something else to do, were fain to stand still and listen, whenever they heard her, as they went to spread their nets over-night. “Oh dear, how beautiful!” said they; and then they were forced to attend to their business, and forget the bird. Yet, if the bird happened to sing again on the following night, and any one of the fishermen came near the spot, he was sure to say to himself: “Dear me, how beautiful that is, to be sure!”

Travellers flocked from all parts of the earth to the emperor’s capital, and admired it, as well as the palace and the garden. Yet when they came to hear the nightingale, they all declared: “This is better still.”

And the travellers, on their return home, related what they had seen, and learned men wrote many volumes upon the town, the palace, and the garden. Nor did they forget the nightingale, which was reckoned the most remarkable of all; and those who could write poetry penned the most beautiful verses about the nightingale in the forest near the lake.

The books circulated through the world, and some of them fell into the emperor’s hands. He sat on his golden throne, and kept reading and reading, and nodding his head every moment, for he was delighted with the beautitul descriptions of the town, the palace, and the garden. “But the nightingale is the most lovely of all!” said the book.

“What is that?” said the emperor. “I don’t know of any nightingale! Can there be such a bird in my empire, and in my very garden, without my having ever heard of it? Must one learn such things from books?”

He then called his lord-in-waiting, who was so grand a personage, that if any one of inferior rank to himself dared to speak to him, orask him a question, he only answered “P!” which meant nothing at all.

“This must be a very remarkable bird that is called a nightingale,” said the emperor. “They say it is the finest thing in my large kingdom. Why was I never told anything about it?”

“I never heard of her before!” said the lord-in-waiting, “She has never been presented at court.”

“I choose that she should come and sing before me this very evening,” said the emperor. “The whole world knows what I possess, while I myself do not!”

“I never heard her mentioned before,” repeated the lord-in-waiting; “but I will seek for her and find her.”

But where was she to be found? The lord-in-waiting